TYPE 2 ONSET DIABETES CAN BE AN EARLY WARNING SIGN OF PANCREATIC CANCER

TYPE 2 ONSET DIABETES CAN BE AN EARLY WARNING SIGN OF PANCREATIC CANCER

January 29, 2017
Source: European Cancer Organization
Edited For Style, Length, and Insight

NOTE:
The following study was performed by researchers from the Prevention Research Institute in Lyon, France and was presented at the European Cancer Congress held in Amsterdam, Belgium. According to the PubMed Department of the US National Library of Medicine which reviewed this study, It is important to note that it analyzes these findings in context that Diabetes has been linked with pancreatic cancer, though it is unclear why. It is important to note that Type 2 Diabetes could be both a cause and symptom of pancreatic cancer. Although it could increase the risk of getting pancreatic cancer, what is probably more likely is that the rapid onset or rapid deterioration of diabetes could be a symptom of pancreatic cancer itself.Read more from the PubMed Health overview of the following study.

THE STUDY:
Patients and their doctors should be aware that the onset of diabetes, or a rapid deterioration in existing diabetes that requires more aggressive treatment, could be an early sign of early, hidden pancreatic cancer, according to research by the European Prevention Research Institute and presented at the European Cancer Congress in late January, 2017.

Ms Alice Koechlin, from the International Prevention Research Institute in Lyon, France, told the meeting that an analysis linking nearly a million patients with type 2 diabetes in Lombardy (Italy) and Belgium with recorded cases of pancreatic cancer showed that 50% of all pancreatic cancers cases in the two regions were diagnosed within one year of patients being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and being given their first prescription to control it.

“In Belgium 25% of cases were diagnosed within 90 days and in Lombardy it was 18%.

After the first year, the proportion of diagnosed pancreatic cancers dropped dramatically,” she said. The researchers found that compared with patients who were able to continue with oral anti-diabetic drugs, patients in Belgium and in Lombardy had a 3.5-fold greater risk of being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the first three months after their first prescription for incretins (metabolic hormones that stimulate the pancreas to produce more insulin to lower blood glucose levels); this fell to a 2.3-fold risk in the next three to six months, to a two-fold risk for the next six to 12 months and 1.7-fold risk after the first year.